This invention relates to a smoothing machine for smoothing and compressing stitched seams on shoe shanks, and is of the type including a driven friction wheel, cooperable with a friction wheel rotatably mounted on a relatively elongated support over and along which the shoe shanks are fed, for compressing and smoothing the stitched seams.
If closed shoe shanks are processed on known machines of this type, they accumulate, after smoothing of their seams, around the support. Consequently, the support must be swingable to provide sufficient space between the two friction wheels to remove the shoe shanks.
Swinging out of the support after a certain sequence of operations on the machine requires, however, additional energy and represents also lost time in a production operation. The necessity of swinging out the support after several operations does not permit the use of such a smoothing machine in an automatic plant where the individual shoe shanks are automatically supplied and removed. Difficulties are also encountered in smoothing the rear seams of boot shanks, because the capacity of the shank support is very limited in this case.